1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control system including a cooling device for cooling a cooled space, an integrated control apparatus for controlling the cooling device, and a control program used in the integrated control apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a cooling device for cooling a cooled space, for example, a showcase installed in a shop such as a supermarket or a convenience store or the like, is widely used. Usually, in such a shop, multiple cooling devices are installed, and the plurality of cooled spaces of the multiple cooling devices are cooled by a refrigerant supplied through the same piping. In the case of the showcase, for example, the cooled space refers to the inside of a compartment where food articles are displayed. Since moisture in the air attaches as frost to such a cooling device, a frost removing operation (a defrosting operation) for removing the frost attached to the cooling device is performed by regularly raising a temperature of the cooling device. In addition, the frost attached to the cooling device refers to the frost attached to an evaporator (a heat sink) to which the refrigerant is supplied. Regularly removing the frost attached to the evaporator well maintains cooling capability of the evaporator.
The frost removing operation herein is, for example, an operation for removing the frost by stopping flow of the refrigerant using a solenoid valve and by heating the evaporator using a heater. When such a defrosting operation is performed, the temperature of the cooled space is elevated. Thus, after the frost removing operation ends, a recovery operation (a pull-down operation) is performed to lower the elevated temperature in the cooled space to a predetermined temperature.
In the recovery operation, in order to maintain freshness or quality of the food articles displayed in the compartment, it is desirable to promptly lower the temperature of the cooled space to the predetermined temperature. That is to say, it is desirable that time for performing the recovery operation should be short. To this end, a technique is proposed in which, in a cooling device comprising a main evaporator and an auxiliary evaporator, the auxiliary evaporator cools a cooled space while the frost removing operation for removing the frost attached to the main evaporator is performed (See, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Hei 5-60450). With this technique, time for performing the recovery operation can be reduced by suppressing a temperature rise in the cooled space while the frost removing operation is performed.